This invention relates to surveillance assemblies, and, in particular, to surveillance assemblies utilizing cameras housed within enclosures.
Surveillance assemblies have now been developed for use in retail, industrial and other types of establishments wherein the surveillance assemblies employ cameras to monitor the area under surveillance. These surveillance assemblies also employ enclosures to house and ceiling mount their respective cameras. Typical types of enclosures in use today include a top housing, usually in shell form, in which the camera components are housed and which is supported above the ceiling surface. A bottom cover, usually in the form of a dome-like member, extends below the ceiling surface and is attached to the top housing for enclosing the camera components.
In designing the above surveillance assemblies, designers have been faced with the problem of trying to make the assemblies as inconspicuous as possible. Also, a further problem has been to arrange the assemblies so as to make it difficult to determine the assembly viewing direction. The need for an inconspicuous structure stems from the demands of purchasers of these assemblies who for various reasons, such as, for example, aesthetics and customer relations, desire the assemblies to be unobtrusive. The need to shield the viewing direction, in turn, is based on the desire to prevent the avoidance of surveillance merely by keeping out of the viewing direction of the assembly.
In early surveillance assemblies, the dome-like covers were necessarily of large diameter and depth, due to the size of the cameras and lenses used and due to the need to pivot or tilt these components along their longer dimensions (i.e., their lengths). Similarily, early attempts at hiding the viewing direction of these assemblies centered around tinting the dome-like cover and/or utilizing a viewing slot in an otherwise opaque inner dome-like shroud member.
One assembly developed by the assignee of the present application and sold under the trademark "Sensorvision" provided for use of a mirror to fold or redirect the viewing direction of the lens and camera. Thus, by placing a mirror at a 45.degree. angle and in line with the common viewing direction of the camera and lens, the latter components could be pivoted jointly with the lens along their shorter or width dimensions to obtain the desired scanning of the viewing direction. This allowed for a smaller size of the dome-like cover and, as a result, a reduced observability of the surveillance assembly. Also, shielding of the camera and lens in this design was achieved by using an inner shroud with a slot and by providing various levels of indentations in the shroud.
While the "Sensorvision" surveillance assembly has proven to be an effective unit, the size of the dome-like cover which protrudes below the ceiling is still relatively large, it being 24 inches in diameter and 7 inches in depth. Furthermore, the use of a slotted shroud for camouflage was found not to provide total shielding, particularly when viewing the unit from a direction in back of the slot.
Designers of the assignee of the present application have, therefore, continued to explore possible alternative surveillance assemblies. One alternative assembly looked to replacing the normal tube-type camera in the "Sensorvision" assembly with a solid state camera. Such cameras are of small overall dimension and, thus, offer the possibility of reduced size.
In order to effect replacement of the normal tube-type camera by a solid state camera in the "Sensorvision" assembly, it was found that further processing electronics would have to be used. These electronics were needed to reorient the image which was inverted by use of the mirror. In the normal tube-type camera, reorientation of the image could be accomplished simply by switching two leads in the camera. This approach was not possible in the smaller solid state cameras owing to the use in these cameras of a solid state pickup for receiving the image. Accordingly, the need for additional electronic processing and its attendant disadvantages of increased size and cost negated to a large degree the advantage of reduced size of the solid state cameras.
Another possible alternative assembly looked to using the solid state camera without a mirror and arranged, as in the aforementioned prior art assemblies, to be pivoted about its length. This arrangement, however, still required dimensions for the dome-like cover which were fairly large. Also, when a solid state camera is used in this way with a slotted shroud for shielding, the slot tends to become more visible, particularly from the rear of the slot, making shielding more difficult.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a surveillance assembly of reduced size.
It is also a primary object of the present invention to provide a surveillance assembly with enhanced shielding.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a surveillance assembly using a solid state camera in a way to achieve a dome-like cover of reduced width and depth.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a surveillance assembly employing a slotted inner shroud and further adapted to reduce the visibility of the slot.